living in a car

Update: It turns out the Mcdonald’s in Mayfield has an outlet that doesn’t work. It was so loose I couldn’t get my charger to go in and stay and ended up leaving and going someplace else where I got a little more work done, watched a couple of my lessons and some TV. All in all, not a bad night. The bad news came this morning. I’ve been battling a sinus infection/throat infection for the past two or three weeks and can’t seem to shake it. It just keeps coming and going.

I’ve been waiting to write this post because I don’t generally give the exact location of where I am. This sounds paranoid I’m sure but since I’m living in my car I don’t want anyone to know where I am exactly.

Today started out pretty well with me having lunch at Burger King. I have receipts for a free whopper or chicken sandwich with the purchase of fries and drink. The total came to $3.69 and I certainly can’t beat that. The total varies from place to place depending on taxes. I’ve spent as much as $4.30 but the average is less than $4.00. After my post yesterday about the harmful preservatives they put in fast food, high fat and processed foods I know I should have heeded my own advice and stayed away but I didn’t feel like eating at subway today. I eat there every day.

I had a light day planned. I was going to fax some documents off and go to the library and work awhile on my sites and watch my website lessons then a little TV after I picked up a new pair of earbuds(mine are going bad). But when I got to walmart they were closed because the power is out. It turns out power in the entire city of Murray and some of the county are without power. Apparently a substation went out. They suspect a lightening strike is what caused the outage. Since without power there is also no wifi service I decided to head to a neighboring town in hopes of getting online. I had already called the mcdonald’s in this town a few days ago when I was here and knew they had an outlet albeit only one outlet in the dining room. It’s a much older store than the one in Murray. The one in Murray in either a new restaurant or has been remodelled. Either way, it’s a really nice one with a 24 hour dining room and very comfortable chairs and color coordinated. I will probably have to go back because I still have to fax some stuff and there’s no office supply store here. Sometimes libraries offer fax services but I like self service kiosks. And some truck stops do too.

Once I get in one Mcdonald’s that I really like I hate to leave it in hopes of finding another I will like. The same thing happened in Sikeston/Charleston, Missouri. The Mcdonald’s in Charleston is a new or renovated one and very nice with the same color coordinated chairs that are so appealing in Murray. The downside and the reason I didn’t stay there very long was the fact that I had to drive 15 miles to get to it from the walmart where I parked and that was using too much fuel. I prefer walmart and mcdonald’s to be close to one another eliminating some of the driving and gas wasting. I didn’t get through this month saving as much as I did by driving alot. I’ve had to stay almost two weeks in one town to save on fuel costs.

I was here in this town a few days ago when I came here to get a haircut. These small towns are very lacking when it comes to salons and other things. When I was in Ridgecrest, California I wanted a haircut and had to drive 80 miles to Victorville(not too from San Bernardino) to get one. Otherwise I would have stayed in Ridgecrest. It was a nice little town.

The other day when I got my hair cut she used something she called hair powder. I looked in the stores for something similar but didn’t find anything. She started putting it in my hair before I could say anything. She said it worked really well for short cuts. I don’t like it. It does allow styling similar to hair gels giving it a hair dryer blown look but I still don’t like it. As with most hair products it looks kind of dirty by the next day and feels even dirtier. And with my situation being what it is I don’t need anything that makes me have to wash my hair more especially since most of the walmart’s here don’t have family restrooms. I still wash it. But I don’t like doing it in front of everyone. Not that I have a problem with anyone seeing me but when I’ve been in one walmart parking lot for nearly two weeks I don’t want to do anything that brings attention to myself.

Some videos online suggest using baby powder to make hair look less greasy. I haven’t tried it so I don’t know but I do know it would be messy. I tried that dry shampoo one time and it was so bad I had to run into the truck stop and wash my hair and I thought I’d never get it out. So I’m definitely not a fan although I saw several dry shampoo products the other day in the store. If I can’t wash my hair for a few days sometimes I will use hair gel which works pretty well. It makes it look kind of wet depending on how it’s applied. I don’t usually wet my hair anymore when I apply it. If the scalp is starting to itch I can use a little hair spray(it has a high alcohol content) and it stops it and also dries the hair out a little.

I just now checked to see if power had been restored to Murray and it has been. If I had just waited a couple of hours it would have been back on and I’m sure the Mcdonald’s there is open now that power is on. But I was getting bored staying there anyway not that it matters since I have to stay in this general area a few more days then I will leave and go to my next stop which I’m thinking will only be about 30 or 40 miles depending on whether I like the Mcdonald’s there. Sometimes they aren’t comfortable, sometimes the wifi is no good and sometimes they’re dining room doesn’t stay open long enough. Very, very few have 24 hour dining rooms but they have to at least close at 11 PM for me to be satisfied and be comfortable. If they’re not I’ll look for another. Another thing I like is having the $1 fountain drinks. Some charge $1.60 or more for a small drink. I feel bad if I don’t order something but when it’s higher I will only order a drink once in awhile when I go in but I usually get food before I leave depending on how hungry I am. Some are super busy and don’t really notice if you buy anything or not. And others have a layout where you can sit on the side and they never really notice you. And some don’t care. Very few have time limits on internet access but some do especially out west. They only allow wifi access for an hour while you eat. Now I don’t imagine they can control it if a person sits in their car accessing the internet if they can. I have done this when I was sick and didn’t want to go inside. One such place was in Franklin, Virginia right after I purchased the Impala and I was coughing real bad. They had excellent wifi I was able to access even though I was at the end of the parking lot.

I’ve rambled on long enough about stuff that most people will not find useful but if you happen to be travelling or living in a vehicle you might find it useful.

Well, I expect to be in Mayfield, Murray, Benton, Calvert City, Kentucky a few more days. The house my ex husband is rebuilding is almost complete and already with a property manager and this will bring in income. Income that will benefit me and hopefully I won’t be quite as strapped for money as I am now. We won’t clear anything the first month not with all the fees the property management company charges and the reserve that has to be met(that’s a starting fee for repairs). So I know I’m going to have to be very saving for the next month but hopefully after that it won’t be as tight as it is now. I’ve done quite well this month and I’m very surprised as I didn’t do this well two years ago but gas prices are cheaper now than they were then. But I added up how much I would be spending if gas were as high as $3.00 a gallon and still I would have saved more now than I did then. I’m a little stumped. There are however a couple of differences. I’m in a different car but the other car was also a mid sized sedan averaging 20 MPG around town and 30 MPG highway which is about the same as the car I’m in now. But actually the other car got better gas mileage at least on the highway. All in all, about the same. The other difference is I would only put enough fuel in it for one day which averaged about $12.00 a day. I also didn’t stay in one town as long. If I remember correctly I only stayed in one place for 4 or 5 days, maybe a week unless the weather didn’t permit me to leave. This all added up to more gas.

This all said I keep a record of what I’m spending every day and if I feel I’ve spent enough for that day I look for ways to reduce the amount. I still have to eat but I’ll eat one of those tuna or chicken salad packs for a dollar. The salmon ones which I like are $1.78 each at walmart. I always shop at walmart because it’s usually cheaper on the things I buy the most. Sometimes I’m so hungry I end up eating at Mcdonald’s before I leave. I try to eat as cheap and healthy as I can which is usually hot cakes and a hash brown or side salads, sometimes plain english muffins. While writing this I decided to look up the nutrition ingredients again. Aside from the fat which isn’t too bad in the things I eat they do contain ingredients like PDSM(anti foaming agent) which is in shampoos to make hair shiny, caulks, etc. and TBHQ(causes tumors, convulsions, paralysis, etc. in lab rats and also said to affect behavior especially those with ADHD and similar maladies) which is found in paints, varnishes, etc. My conclusion, we may as well start eating paint, soap and spar varnish. Although the FDA says small amounts are safe but statistics are that people who eat high fat diets consume a whopping 180% of what is an acceptable amount. And the average american eats 90% of what is acceptable.

The unfortunate downside is I’m eating this albeit not all the time. I wish there was a healthier wifi hotspot. But I have to say mcdonald’s has good wifi for the most part. I just try not to eat too much of it. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to avoid everything bad for us because even when we eat nothing but raw vegetables we are still consuming pesticides and insecticides that we all know are bad for us. So to be perfectly honest, nothing is truly safe.

This is one of the downsides of living in a car. I have to eat prepared foods from mostly fast food places. Although I eat at subway most every day so I can get vegetables and eat alot of tuna. In fact, I eat enough fish to float a battleship.

Aside from this fast food is not really cheap but I’m not a big fan of eating in my car. I read online that if you must sleep in your vehicle don’t eat in it too. Another reason for not eating in it all the time and alot of people don’t realize this because most don’t sleep in their cars is that when enough crumbs fall down into the track it will cause failure. I started to notice my last car’s seat starting to act up a little with relatively low miles. My car before that started acting up at 96k miles but didn’t completely fail until 246k(so not a bad run) leaving me to buy another car on the road which wasn’t planned or affordable but with few options since the seat cost $1200 and the shop refused to fix it insisting I’d be better off with a newer, lower miles car. While this is accurate they weren’t the ones paying the monthly car payment or the ones in an upside down loan. This is a whole other story as there’s more to it than just this. But the basic premise is the seat failed, I couldn’t get it repaired and had to buy something else with a loan on it that ended up having my ex husband’s name on it as the primary even though he was never in the dealership. They changed the paperwork he signed. And had him sign it while standing on a street corner in one of his infamous protests and he didn’t have time to read the paperwork. This is all for a different post. Bottom line, it’s not a good idea to eat all the time in a vehicle and spill crumbs down into the seat track especially a power seat.

As for saving money in a car, I’m sure there are others who have better tips than I do. Because most of them suggest eating food from stores but you are very limited in what you can eat because you can eat nothing that will spoil. If you have a van or RV/camper it might be easier.

I ended up off the subject like always and tend to ramble which I try to avoid. I will end for now.

I’ll start with this because this is where I’m currently at. I left North Carolina back in December, right before Christmas. When I came back to NC in September I tried to stay with my ex husband for a little while but it didn’t work out mainly due to his drinking. He would keep me up until the wee hours of the morning griping and fussing about everything under the sun(my previous therapist called it verbal abuse) and it was very stressful. Between yelling and drinking he would drop his pants and try to get me to engage in sexual activity which I’ve no desire to do. It’s no secret that we have an almost unbreakable bond and it’s hard to tear away from him and my last boyfriend(we’re still friends) insisted that we break all ties. At the time he wanted me to kick him out of a house that belonged to me. Shortly after my uncle acquired the property(it’s in terrible disrepair and I got very little for it) but my last boyfriend thinks I still have the power to kick him out of the house even though it no longer belongs to me. Well, obviously I can’t do that and anyone using their common sense knows this.

This long story that I’ll talk more about later brings me here to Kentucky. When I started back in December anger fueled me all the way to California as it has done in the past. I explored many places while there. I went to Death Valley National Park, Big Bend National Park in Texas, Utah(which I’ve never been to but driven through with my ex husband years ago), area 51 in Nevada, the canyons in Utah and Arizona, Lake Tahoe, Mammoth Lakes in California, Tombstone, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and quite a few other destinations along the way and I still haven’t explored the gulf coast which was my intent upon leaving NC. I didn’t make it back to the Grand Canyon which is a regret. I I left Flagstaff, Arizona intent on exploring Route 66 which I did. Not all of it but some. My quest was to to make it to Joplin, Missouri then decided on St. Louis but got rearended and sidetracked and ended up going to Kansas then after having my car inspected kept going east which brings me to Kentucky, not too far from Missouri and Illinois. Not my favorite Kentuckian spot, Pikeville which is closer to West Virginia.

I’ve been here in Kentucky for almost two weeks taking care of business, getting my new blogs started and exploring a few places that are supposedly haunted. I developed that interest after my mother died years ago and a three car accident which I’ll talk more about later as I move some posts. My old blog kind of started to become a catchall for everything. My nature pictures, my haunted and abandoned places, other haunted objects and other photographs that fell into the category of interesting, cars(I love old, classic cars and photograph every one I see), route 66 and most anything else I can think of. I finally realized that haunted and abandoned places go on one blog, my travels and route 66 on another and maybe nature on a third. But I haven’t quite decided what direction I want this blog to go in so I may put my travels and some of my photography here. Rather than trying to keep up with three(or four). I’m currently working on three. But as I get my old blog posts moved I’ll drop one except for marketing purposes since it gets more traffic than my two brand new ones. At least right now.

Since I’m not sure which direction I want to take this blog in it may end up having my nature and travel photography. And of course I will still write. That is without a doubt one of my big passions next to photography although sometimes I tend to ramble about stuff that makes no sense to anyone but me. Anyway, we’ll see. And thanks for visiting. Hope to see you again.